When the Catholic Biblical Association reached out this year to see if Amy-Jill Levine would be interested in serving as its president, she wrote someone else on the nominating committee to ask: is this a joke? Because Levine is not Catholic. She’s Jewish.
While not a Christian, the Vanderbilt professor emerita is one of the world’s premier Jesus scholars who has been preaching and teaching in Christian churches in Nashville and around the globe for most of her career – all in a lifelong effort to rewire the parts of Christianity that can lead to antisemitism.
“It’s so common for people to make Judaism look toxic to make Jesus look good,” Levine says. “The work that I do is not only to try to stop Christians from engaging in forms of Jew hatred, it’s also trying to help Jews stop engaging in forms of Christian hatred. Nobody is intending to be hateful, but the words are coming out nonetheless. And the correction here is education.”
What started on the school bus as an attempt to prove another student wrong (she had accused Levine of killing Jesus) has blossomed into decades of scholarship intended for people who sit in church pews on Sundays. Levine has written an exhaustive list of books with names like “The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus.” Even in her retirement, she remains as busy as ever writing, reviewing manuscripts and speaking to Christian gatherings large and small.
And yes, she accepted the nomination to serve as president of the Catholic Biblical Association. It became official July 20.
Blake Farmer produced this episode.
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